A Valentine's Day conversation with 'Amour' writer/director Michael Haneke

Every time Michael Haneke has an idea for a film, there's always a different catalyst that makes him sit down and write it. It might be an image that comes to him, or a newspaper clipping that will stir his creativity. "The motivation has to be something that already interests you enough to want to think about it and reflect on it," he says, calling from Madrid where he's preparing a new opera. "Then you start collecting material and observations until you feel you have enough to start trying to order the material, structure. And that ordering and structuring is the longest, most difficult process."

Other times, like in the case of something like "Amour" and star Jean-Louis Trintignant, it might be a specific actor for whom he wishes to write a part. But his latest film, which has landed five Oscar nominations including Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Haneke, had darker and more meditative beginnings than just that. He had an aunt once who asked him to help her pass away and he was forced to look on as a loved one suffered. And yet, "Amour" is a love story, with all the deeply considered complications of love and a life lived with another. It's fitting, then, that we're speaking on Valentine's Day.

"Amour" has come to be considered one of Haneke's most universal and accessible works, despite sporting the same rigor as his previous work. That might be because it concerns itself with that very universal concept. But nevertheless, to Haneke, "there's not a difference between my films besides the subject matter."

While Haneke wrote the film with Trintignant in mind, it was through a typical casting process. He looked at a great many actresses in France of the appropriate age. It was Riva, who debuted in Alain Resnais's "Hiroshima Mon Amour" over five decades ago, who stood out for the director.

"From the very first audition it was clear that she was the ideal partner for Jean-Louis Trintignant," Haneke says. "Not only because she's very good, but also because together they form a very credible couple."

It's clear quickly enough that Haneke isn't overtly concerned with concepts so much as craft. He avoids dealing in theory too much, which is interesting for someone who's earliest professional exposure to the art of filmmaking was as a critic.

"Critics are more interested in the theoretical aspect of film and less with the practical aspects of film," he says. "That's what disturbs filmmakers when they read critics, because critics are more interested in questions of ideology than they are with questions of craft. You can only learn your craft from making films."

Nevertheless, Haneke teaches directing at Filmacademy Vienna in Vienna, Austria. And he's always been interested in the theoretical underpinnings of film, he says, "because that's enjoyable. But I don't think that's necessary for the artistic quality of a film. I think that intelligence and education can't hurt you as a filmmaker but it's not the only source for artistic production."

Quite obviously, Haneke is guided by his gut and instinct when putting together a new film project. What it all might mean, well, perhaps maddeningly, he'll leave that to discussion. He often deals in ambiguity, though, and there are elements of that even in his "most accessible" latest.

Take the couple's relationship with their daughter, played by Isabelle Huppert. There is an underlying sense that something has gone quite wrong in that relationship, that they seem more dedicated to each other than to her.

"We live in a society when we're quite busy in our working lives and it's the family life that pays the price for that," he says. "A century ago when the elderly fell sick and died, they would have done so within the prism of their family. Now that family structure no longer exists. And I think that the family relationship that the film portrays is very common."

So while "Amour" might indeed be more universal, it's still very much a Michael Haneke film. Of course, then, he was "totally surprised" it was nominated in five categories by the Academy this year.

Now he's knee deep in mounting a production of the opera "Così fan tutte" in Madrid. It's a bit of a shift, to say the least. He moves from the deep love and celluloid of "Amour" to the comedic wife-swapping of Mozart. "I'd worked with the same opera company in Paris a couple of years ago on a production of Mozart's 'Don Giovanni,' so I was happy to work with them again," he says. "The pairing of Mozart with the librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte is really the pinnacle of opera. It's a huge pleasure."

In two weeks Haneke may or may not walk out of the Dolby Theatre with an Oscar for his film. Though don't expect him to Tweet about it. Whether he does or not, "Amour" is his most successful film to date. Accessible? Maybe. But it certainly wasn't compromised into that position.

"Amour" is now playing in select theaters nationwide.

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Kristopher Tapley has covered the film awards landscape for over a decade. He founded In Contention in 2005. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London and Variety. He begs you not to take any of this too seriously.

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Your last sentence is very apt. The film is more accessible simply because the subject matter is easier to relate to for a wider number of people. Not because Haneke dulled his film making or held his audience's hand.

"That's what disturbs filmmakers when they read critics, because critics are more interested in questions of ideology than they are with questions of craft."

Words of wisdom. Cinema is a medium for film-making, not philosophy. Film-making is the the composition of static or moving frames with objects and people arranged in them or either moving and the relation between those images.

I find amateur reviewers maddening on messages boards and all when they use terms such as this film is very "layered", or assigning some absolutely far-fetched intention to the film-maker or pulling symbolism out of their ass.

Cinema for the most part should not be judged that way. It should be judged by the staging of the scenes, the composition by the frames, the editing and the flow, the narrative soundness, the structure, basically all the formal and architectural aspects of cinema, not some bogus theory about what it might mean that you have cooked up in your head.

Haneke's work is so good because he's unusually intelligent about this aspect of his work. If more film-makers thought this way, we would have better made films with more frequency.

Although I admired Amour, I consider his earlier films more enthralling experiences, and in the cases of THE SEVENTH CONTINENT, THE PIANO TEACHER, and CACHE, masterpieces. Hopefully, this new attention on the auteur will provoke more people to check out his entire catalog; they'll be in for quite the treat.